


The Shadows Will Bleed

by Arctic_Cyclist



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics)
Genre: DickDamiWeek, House of Leaves, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 12:58:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11464086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arctic_Cyclist/pseuds/Arctic_Cyclist
Summary: Everyone has relationships they would rather keep secret and not talk about. Damian has more than most.





	The Shadows Will Bleed

**Author's Note:**

> Do you ever think about how messed up Damian is? Every single teacher he had, many of them he knew from infancy until he came to Gotham, is either dead or maimed because of him. No wonder he struggles with relationships. So far they've all ended badly.

In order to become an initiate, he had to step into the dessert and shed himself. Enter a horrifying vision of death. One that was overwhelming real, rich in in scents and texture and feeling. Two years later, he met his father and saw the uniform of the boy who died defiant. Five months later, he met Richard Grayson and realized who the boy was. More important, he understood that he would survive his grandfather's attempt on his body. 

As much as he's tempted to, he doesn't tell Dick about this aspect of their relationship. Even when he's mad, enraged, furious with the man and his father and their unreasonable beliefs that he takes too many risks, he doesn't say,"Don't be idiotic, Grayson, I have seen how I die. As long as you are Batman, I will be safe."

He thinks about it. Practices telling him in his many nests and next to his grandparents graves. Informing Dick about how he saw his death but still can't astral project like his mother, and then spill out his other secrets like a river in flood. Things he keeps silent and chokes on. A history unmarked and erased from his skin. Al Ghuls have no scars unless they were given by another of the blood, unless Grandfather approves. Arkady had been marked by Dusan, Mara by him, Nyssa in Ravensbruck at Grandfather's command. She'd let her niece and nephew run their fingers over the bright blue numbers and whisper, "Never forget, never forgive."

Sometimes, when left alone by his so called family in this foul smelling city surrounded by swamp and sea, he'll ink her numbers into his skin and read the love letters she wrote to Joshua Wayne. Memorize the ones she sent to Solomon and his wife, the discourse on death sentences. Advice on how to sentence her half brother Arkady for the rape and murder of a girl, the one they caught him committing. One of the many crimes he committed. So many vile things they even Ra's grew weary of him and let him rot as Judge Wayne commanded.

It is amazing how times have changed, how easy it is to catch a criminal. Justice is in his blood, and the he finds the process of it fascinating. He'll never tell anyone that. Just like he doesn't think Father knows to check his great grandfather's bones to see if Alan Wayne is more closely related to himself than Damian. He isn't, Damian tested them and settled with the terrible secret knowledge that his father is also a cousin. Immortal relationships are a pain. 

"Grayson." He says to the mirror in his green bower decorated in blue. Bowerbirds like blue, and when he wears a Nightwing hoodie, he can be both a bowerbird and his brother, they are disconcertingly similar. "My father is descended from my mother's older sister. I am the product of incest, and I think it was deliberately arranged by my Grandfather to create a perfect vessel. Everyone I have ever cared about or cared about me before I came to Gotham is either dead or crippled in a way to deny them their greatest joys. My father's clone said I was his greatest mistake. My mother has replaced me. You're all I have, please don't leave me."

There aren't any cameras or recording devices, he checked. Still, he whispers. It hurts to say things like that out loud. The birds might hear, or the bats, and they will sing it in their high voices to his mentor. They might even make him understand.

 

The first emotion in the mythology of Wonder Woman was grief. Cross checking shows that it was not a unique aspect of mythology to that part of the world, many aboriginal and indigenous cultures feel the same. The shamans he knew in Siberia told him this, as did the priests who made him a god at eighteen months. The first little boy god in five hundred years, and the only native speaker of a language dead for eight thousand. It served him well in the Year of Blood, he likes the way it flows. The lack of directions and pronouns. What he did not like was how it felt a few months later when he was dropped unceremoniously on the ground and cut. Godhood, the divine living essence of the universe leaving him, flowing away with his blood into the thirsty dust. He'd wailed for days, refused to be comforted until Grandfather lost his patience and had Mother drop him in a dry well and close the lid. Darkness wrapped around him, a thick warm blanket, and bats sung him stories and promises. After a few hours he wiped his snot on the ground and climbed up and pushed out bricks to escape because the lid was too heavy to lift. They found him four days later with a pack of feral dogs, flea bitten and savage. Ravi still has the scar from the bite Damian gave him.

He doesn't remember being removed from Talia, it was during the first trimester. He remembers the day of his birth, the red swirled water and smiling face. He remembers missing someone, a part of him, a twin in another jar. They reached out for each other, lonely in their separate spaces. 

In the crèche was Mara and another baby demon. They spoke their own language, a trinity complete in themselves. A binary set of stars, with a third orbiting them, content in each other's company. Grandfather said she held them back. Ordered his sister gone. Talia was summoned after the second day of him being colicky to deal with his tantrum and Mara's moody silence. His first words were a plaintive "Why? Why, Mama?"

A question that became it's own answer. A relationship that like the being a god's vessel year later, hurts too much to talk about or remember. A secret he keeps from himself as a blacked out page in his mind.

 

Often there are days where he doubts his decision to leave Mother. Days when Grayson chooses Drake as his partner, which drag into weeks and the man he...likes and depends on slips away. Becomes someone else. Alfred says it's who he used to be before becoming Batman. A man of doubts, who doesn't have the easy confidence in himself and his Robin that Damian has come to rely on. 

Then Father will leave, and Drake, and it's just them again, Bat and Butler and Boy. The way it should be and his doubts disappear like fear gas in sunshine. There are even times like this, when Alfred is too busy to care for them because Father is needy and helpless, where they eat cereal for multiple meals or take out and simple meals made on the grill. Days when Damian wears the same pair of socks to see how long before he's wrestled to the ground and feet stripped bare and scrubbed. 

It's been three days in the socks with little purple bats on them. It's not certain, but he thinks they may be developing sentience. At least, he's blaming them for the way he's lounging on the couch with Grayson, and the way his toes keep poking the man's ear. 

"Damn it, Damian! Stop that."

"What? Kicking your ass? Is it my fault that you don't know any good words? Are you blaming me for the crappy letters you keep getting? Oracle has personally blocked me from doing that. Blame her and your inadequate education system for your losing."

One bat toe wiggles down to Dick's nose. Survival instincts kick in and the man yanks away.

"Jesus, Robin, your socks reek. Take them off."

"No. You can't make me, Buttman. My Sock Fu is superior to your Kung Fu. Only the Bat-ler can defeat it. And he's off with Grumpyman."

"Stephanie is a terrible influence on you. As Butt- I mean Batman and the oldest brother, I can defeat Stinky Sock Fu, I created it!"

 

When he came to Gotham, he thought he could shed his past like a reptile its skin. Swift, smooth, and clean with a dry empty husk left behind. He didn't realize that by deciding to be a bat as a two year old, his past would be like Goliath's fur. It's long, red, and gets everywhere and into everything, working its way throughout the fabrics of his life. Itchy and troublesome, it clings and clogs and even if it's shed and done, it still defines him. It's all people who know who he was can think about when they think of him.

It never goes away.

Sometimes, he sits in the deepest cave below the manor and turns out the light. Returns to the darkness that creates him and practices telling Grayson about the dark and the truth it shelters. "Grayson," he whispers because the dark prefers quiet if it can't have silence, "you are not my first bat. His name is Goliath and I killed his family. He forgave me and guided me to the light. I stole him away from home, and then left him behind for you. I abandoned my Bat for another. Did I make the right choice? Will you abandon me, like Mother did and Father does? Choose Jason's company over mine like they do, or Drake's, or will another supersede me? Without Goliath, I would have died in the dark, in the labyrinth. Or become a monster. Maybe I already am one. Everyone thinks so, and I've done terrible things. Unforgivable."

He practices and practices, but the words aren't easy and silence presses in. Silence and dark speak to him through the tides, sighing a distant hush, hush.

 

In the beginning, they moved to the Tower and the Bunker. Alfred anticipated resistance on Damian's part to sharing the deck and pool, rants about security and privacy, and gave a preemptive lecture series on why it was critical. Damian sulked though it, growling and snarling because it was expected; because admitting that he was more comfortable in a world full of people was too risky to contemplate. Before the last weeks of the Year, the only times he'd been alone were for training and punishment, or as he now realizes, punishment masked as training. There was the Hand and others watching him, a constant warm presence that only let him get hurt because he was the heir; therefore he must be strong and hard enough to bear the painful burden of leadership. That his father and Alfred can tolerate an empty house and shallow relationships is shocking. 

Grandfather has friendships that have lasted for hundreds of years; close, deep bonds of mutual respect and affection. He doesn't discard his lovers; Whisper has warmed his bed off and on for over a hundred years. Dr Darrk, who Damian was never to mention to Mother, or even think about in her presence just like calling Mara cousin, had been a loyal servant for decades. Loyal and valuable enough that when he had been murdered in a power scuffle two years before Damian's birth Ra's had brought him back in a sort of half life. When Damian read the files of his parents first meeting, he was confused and horrified. At least he finally understood why he was never to mention his friend to Mother. He wonders if she finished the job, or if Whisper, Darrk, and the others that Mother hated are still out there and alive. He wonders what he'll do if they are, and if he has to fight them.

Pennyworth's six part lecture, complete with slides and videos, while informative, wasn't necessary. Damian likes watching people, hearing them babbling about inane things. Even when the peasants bring children to splash and play in his pool he enjoys it. After a while he'll even join their games. They did not have pool noodles in the League. A horrible oversight.

Today is glorious, a golden heat that burns white. Every chair on the deck is full of employees and Wayne sycophants attempting to acquire color to their pallid skin. Gotham absorbs skin color, his nut brown has faded to an olive gold and is approaching fish belly. He thinks it's the chemicals in the air, the same ones that drive people mad. Although Sensei swears all white peoples are mad to begin with, and would provide examples of the uncivilized violence they have been prone to. Grandfather's mother's tribe is always listed as part of the examples.

Lucius Fox looks up as Dick bounces over, the cement is hot enough to dry a towel in a few minutes, steam rising up from the dripping swimmer. His son and daughters are with him, basking and manufacturing vitamin D. 

"Dick?" He asks, "What's going on?"

"Damian swears I can't defeat his stinky sock fu."

"Fool! No one can defeat the power of my socks! I am invincible!" Damian wiggles his toes to prove his point. The socks are stiff enough that he doubts the Foxes can tell. 

"He doesn't know about the power of older brothers and a pool?" Tiffany asks, "Or big sisters? Tcht. It took Tam ages to learn that Sock Fu is not an all powerful weapon, or that it can be turned against her. Think Damian's any smarter?"

"No." Dick says, and launches Damian up into the blue to cannonball into the deep end.

 

Other things he has left behind when he came to Gotham: his violin; he can't and won't play it now, he's only had one teacher since he was three and his style is distinct and recognizable; and art because although there were several teachers, their influence can also be identified. Questions will be asked, and he'll have to talk about them. Explain how and why he knew them, and how and why they were retired. Jobs done, sinking into the heavy dark, weighed down so that they would never teach another. Because who could be a better student than Damian?

The last time Damian drowned he was four and three quarters, the last time he got the bends was just after his sixth birthday. Both times he was following them down, knowing they couldn't and wouldn't be spared, but unwilling to let go. 

He isn't sure, but after Grayson fought the Sensei, he thinks he may have confessed. It isn't clear, all he knows is that Grayson was reporting how his Great Grandsire had him bound and clubbed than tossed into the outgoing tide. And Damian couldn't breathe, forgot where he was, felt the sun and the chains, heard Sensei's voice and the screaming of gulls, the swishing of waves against the submarine's sides. 

They were cautious with him for days after the incident, Richard offering more reassurances than normal. Both of his caretakers even went so far as to allow Damian to give them sub dermal trackers, in case something similar happened again.

 

A single soaked sock hits Grayson in the face. It lands in his open mouth. The other follows, hitting with a satisfactory thump as Grayson gags. Damian crows victory, than dives, eelling away from the man's mock wrath as he hits the pool with a splash. Tam and Tiffany are younger siblings, his natural allies in this battle. They have shoved his enemy into the cool salt water.

 

After clone and Pit incident, while Pennyworth dealt with his father's cousin and Grayson the Justice League, Damian cleaned and scrubbed the security feeds and bunker. No one, in particular himself, needed reminding of how Bruce Wayne feels about him. It's just another secret, and he's good at those. 

But he can't hide his dislike of Father's touch after that, the flinch and fight response. The way his stomach churns whenever Bruce Wayne gets close and he catches a whiff of bleach and rancid flesh, hears the decaying voice say, "sacrifice a sun."

Unintentional as it is, he classifies his father with his grandfather: a defining feature of his life, the irrational setter of arbitrary boundaries and rules, not to be trusted, someone who would erase him if they could. In his dreams, and sometimes his waking, they smell of decay and their finger bones slough off flesh as they touch him.

He keeps Grayson and Pennyworth between them when possible, and gives a sigh of relief when Bruce Wayne leaves and life can go back to normal.

 

Tiffany and Tamara explain the rules of the game, and that it's called Marco Polo because the explorer was prone to being lost. Which is true, Grandfather and Great Grandfather both knew him and said he was abysmal at following directions. The name is also pleasing to say, it rolls around the tongue. They play for hours, roping others into the game, until the Fox women must return to work. After a shower, they let him follow. Lucius allows him in the lab, listens as he critiques blueprints and points out design flaws. Drake maybe the official and obvious heir, but Damian is the one who shadows the CEO and asks questions. He has dozens of yellow legal pads filled with his neat cursive, detailing how the company is run and why.

After a few hours, Grayson collects him and they make dinner together. A salad and couscous, salmon from Alaska seared on the grill. Then patrol, laughing as they leap into the night.

 

He's becoming chiaroscuro. Grayson is layering him with light, creating sharp definition. The Robin uniform is a long, red thread leading him through the maze of his families. Leading him to the future. As long as Grayson's his Bat, and not Nightwing in red, it will be fine. There will be no girl in a red coat with the death of billions in her hands. His twin and mother are distant nightmares, someone else's problem. 

They can live together, two princes in a tower. Warriors defending their city. And Damian's secrets won't hurt them. He won't tell Grayson the worst secret of all, the one he whispers into the pillow when the man is asleep, deep in his REM cycle.

"Grayson, I'm sorry. I love you, and I know it's wrong to love. Love destroys everything and everyone. I'm sorry. I tried, but you make it easy to love you. I won't let them destroy you, not like the others. I'll die first."

 

When Grayson shows him his new uniform, Damian shrugs and pretends indifference. Solidarity is overrated, and he prefers blue over red. 

Another secret, never to be told.

**Author's Note:**

> For the record, I find Damian's death immensely satisfying. I'm a westerner, and was raised on the hero's journey. When Damian is well written (both Batman and Robin series, Batman Inc, Robin: Son of Batman, Super Sons), he's an above average kid with an incredible sense amof his and other people's emotional needs, and follows Campbell's steps on the hero's path. It's why he is a satisfying character. 
> 
> That, and he is one of the few characters who is written and drawn accurately for C-PTSD. Even the way Seely, King, and Tomasi are writing him now is delightfully accurate in showing him as a child in recovery and reclaiming his childhood.
> 
> If you're only familiar with faux Nyssa from Arrow, you probably don't know that she's a Russian Jew who met her father at fifteen (Talia in the Nolan Verse is actually a watered down version of Nyssa's origin), was an abolitionist, had twelve children, and saw at least ten of them murdered at Babi Yar. Ra's personally had her interred in the concentration camps and experimented on. Her knowing the Waynes is hinted at in Death and the Maidens as well as a few other comics. She also had blue eyes, prior to Alan Wayne, Waynes had brown eyes. Therefore, I will go down with the head canon that Solomon's wife lost her baby and Alan is the secret love child of Nyssa and Joshua. It explains Ra's's fascination with Bruce, and Nyssa's contempt for him but reluctance to hurt him.


End file.
